social networking

In a recent chat with Forbes, Google’s Sundar Pichai turned a few heads by noting Google+ would be considered as parts — not the sum of those parts. Rather than a social network, Plus would be a stream. And Photos. And Communications. Adding a bit of fuel to the fire was the subsequent dismissal/resignation of Dave Besbris as the head of Google+. Besbris took over for Vic Gundotra, who spearheaded Plus from inception. With a new boss in Bradley Horowitz, the circumstance around Plus might sound confusing. That’s because they kind of are.

Google really has some trouble putting Google+ in its proper place, or at least helping the public understand what it's all about. The much maligned social network, if you still could call it that, has weathered problem after problem but now it seems that the status quo isn't going to last anymore. Brad Horowitz, who will be standing at the helm of Google+, has just confirmed speculation that the service will soon be split up into a more photo-centric product called Photos and the traditional social feed called Streams.

BuzzFeed, the site dedicated to gifs, "which ____ are you?" quizzes, and other viral content, has released a new app that has one focus: yep, you guessed, cute pet pictures. Essentially nothing more than Tinder for pets, the "Cute or Not" app is not about showing the articles and other content available on the full site, but rather has users swiping on animal photos to rate them; towards the right for cute, and left for not cute. It aims to be simple fun, and it does just that.

The pattern should be clear by now: social networking companies offer their service to users for free, and once they grow to a certain level, it's time to start making money with advertisements. Well, everyone's favorite swipe-right-swipe-left dating app Tinder is looking to join the ranks of Facebook and Twitter by showing users ads in the near future. As the company gears up to begin generating revenue, sources say they shopping around for potential partners to fill the advertising space in their app.

This morning Facebook was found to be having some down time across the United States and across the planet. You'll likely find your fair share of Facebook comments on Twitter this morning if you also follow that social network with a bunch of social networking pals. If you're thinking about what you could do in this time of peril, there's always the SlashGear Facebook portal for further exploration. Or if you're feeling adventurous, you could hit up the Space portal!

Snapchat is one of those big ironies of Internet history. It was originally designed to be safe and private due to the "ephemeral" nature of shared content. That, however, was used as a license to share revealing photos, which would eventually get leaked circulated to the public. Add to that more recent complaints about the company's security practices, or lack of it, and you would understand why Snapchat is now trying to save its reputation with a Safety Center that informs parents and teachers what Snapchat is all about.

Since Yahoo acquired Tumblr, they have been cautious to make changes, if any, to the social network. However, it appears there have been a few adjustments recently to the censorship or filtering of tags searches. But it's not related to adult content, something that many users fond of the site feared would change when Yahoo took over, rather it's mentions of the word "torrent." This could be related to a new initiative to fight piracy, but any searches for "torrent" will come up blank, both for public and logged in users.

This week the folks at Twitter - who own TweetDeck - have introduced a feature for the platform called Teams. You and your associates will all need TweetDeck for this feature to work, but once they do, it makes sharing one Twitter account super easy. This system allows you to share access to a Twitter account instead of sharing your password for said account. You can give contributor access or admin access, and deny access to this one main leader account at any time.

Being punished for accessing Facebook is nothing new — it’s just typically grounded pre-teens who face the wrath of their parents, not an inmate at a state correctional facility. In South Carolina, one inmate just received 37 years — years — in solitary confinement for posting how much he missed his family. In addition to the alone time, the inmate in question, Tyheem Henry, also lost double that time (74 years) of canteen (inside marketplace for snacks and such), phone, and visitation privileges.

On Friday, Flickr launched the Camera Roll feature for a limited number of users. Still labeled as a beta, Camera Roll is a sleek new interface that focuses on organization, speed, and intuitiveness. Users are immediately presented with all of their photos arranged by either date taken or date uploaded, with smooth scrolling and options to make edits or select multiple images. But what's really new, and useful, is the addition of a timeline à la Facebook on the left, which lets users drill down to find photos by year and then month.